Blog Posts from "psapp" - Gameriot.com

Why Zilea is an immature, juvenile, sweaty sack of cat balls

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:54:47 -0400

March 27th, 2008, after nobody will play with him anymore because he's being a douchebag:
"I'm going to be turning over a new leaf. I'm done with ****-talking players about skill and about who is good and who is bad. I'm going to do more of the things I did in season 1 and early season 2: play for fun and complement other player's who beat me in arena, instead of just trash talking because I lost or trash talking someone who lost to me because I feel superior in some way."

August 26th, 2009, after winning a tournament:
"You know, for somebody like Kint, who has been rerolling class after class to countercomp people at tournaments to just get sideswiped by my team's second ever tournament says volumes about how terrible he is as a player and how vast a difference there is between high caliber teams and low caliber teams. Seriously, can we get good teams to go to tournaments? No more funneling washed up teams, let's start making these tournaments respectable."

This is why nobody likes you

3,000 Arena Rating

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:09:51 -0400

http://www.wowarmory.com/team-info.xml?b=Bloodlust&r=Blackrock&ts=3&t=sup+fresh+our+turn+baby&ff=realm&fv=Blackrock&select=sup+fresh+our+turn+baby

So what happens next? Everyone who hits 3,000 gets Furious Gladiator? Do they raise the cap? Yog's team got incredibly close to 3,000 last night, capping out at 2998. Armory shows them at 2910, I'm not sure if they tanked or if Armory updated early. Either way, if they hit 3,000 too, it seems silly to just give Furious to every team capable of hitting 3k. The ladder should not have a hard limit on it like that.

By the way, that's probably the first time someone has ever said that a team 'tanked down' in to the low 2900's. Pretty crazy stuff.

More interestingly, here's the stats of the two teams playing each other:

sup fresh our turn baby (first place team) vs big furious joke (second place team)
66 games played, 25 wins, 41 losses
win percentage: 37.88%
rating change: +221

big furious joke (second place team) vs sup fresh our turn baby (first place team)
66 games played, 41 wins, 25 losses
win percentage: 62.12%
rating change: +682

All these teams had to do was split games with each other, and MMR carried their ratings up to 3k. That's pretty silly.

Arena Livestream Stress Test: 6:30PM PST

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:16:31 -0400

I'm currently beta testing the next version of Dyyno's Livestream software, which is the technology behind XFire's stream. For the first time ever, the viewer cap has been raised to 250, and my intent is to cap it out at the full 250 viewers in tonight's stream.

If you're interested in watching a 2300+ rated RMP on BG9 play, tune in at 6:30PM PST (9:30PM EST) tonight. You'll see live, streaming video of us playing, and you'll also be able to hear our Ventrilo chat. Please tell your friends! The more the better

Check this post for info about how to view the stream: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15864749600&sid=1&pageNo=1

Direct link to the stream page: http://partners.dyyno.com/rc3/stage_api_1.3_beta/

Make sure to check back in at 6:30, and hope you enjoy watching us lose to Holyplay!

The patch date matters more than you think.

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:35:07 -0400

The most recent post about 3.10 and the season's end says it will end on either the 14th, or the 21st. The difference between these two dates is massive, as it relates to the tournament realm.

If it ends on the 14th, it means the last week of the tournament qualifiers will be played with the 3.10 ruleset. This completely shifts the balance, shadowcleave will be gone, and you'll probably see a big surge in RMP teams and things like Shaman/Destro Lock/Rogue. What was then the top 20 will be largely replaced with different teams, mostly RMP teams, maybe a few oddities like Azael's Destro Lock/Rogue/Shaman. Most of the Hunter/Pally/X teams will drop off in representation, as the majority of them are bad players/rerolls being carried by Shadowcleave.

This might sound bad, but I think the alternative is much worse, both for the sake of the players, and the sake of the tournament. If 3.10 comes after the tournament ends, then the top 8 that qualify will likely be mostly (or all) Shadowcleave. Then, as the regionals begin, the top 8 teams will all be playing completely outdated comps. The advantage, at this point, will be to whichever team can play an alternative setup the best, one that can beat a nerfed Shadowcleave. It'll be an incredibly lackluster ending to a tournament, watching outdated comps fight for who is the best of the worst.

It is a difficult proposition to suggest that Blizzard causes a bunch of chaos during the last week of the qualifiers by releasing 3.10, but I think it is significantly more appealing than the alternative.

Think about what this will mean for the final tournament: By the way things look on the EU ladder, a bunch of RMP teams are going to qualify. On the US side, we're being mostly dominated by Shadowcleave and various other Pally based teams. What will happen if the US sends two severely nerfed Shadowcleave teams through the regionals, set to play against Euro/Asian RMP teams? I think we all know how that will turn out.

What would you prefer? 14th or the 21st?

Calling all Streamers!

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:41:23 -0500

I've been contacted by Dyyno (the company behind the streaming technology on Xfire) to participate in a beta of their new version, which supports more viewers and new features.

If you stream your arenas and frequently cap out your viewers at 50, please contact me and I can get you in the beta for the new version. If you think you're capable of 300+ viewers, I'm very interested in hearing from you.

Contact me by PM on Gameriot, ArenaJunkies, or in-game (Affix, Tichondrius Alliance) if you're interested. There are approximately 10 invites available. If you do not regularly cap out your stream, please don't contact me, thanks!

edit: Filled all 10 spots, thanks.

Affix
Litreocola
Serennia
Sckwow
Kolllektiv
Entrepidlol
Irontiki
Levidia
Zilea
Pyrilus

3.0 Arenas: Bring on the damage.

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:46:14 -0400

I played Frost Mage/Ret Pally/Disc Priest for about 40 games last night. We started at 2150 but personal rating had us queueing in the 1800â€™s at the start, and ended up in the 2100â€™s or so. We played against a wide variety of comps: Shadowplay, RMP, Ret/Ret/Holy, Mage/Warrior/Druid, Enhancement Shaman/Disc Priest/UA Lock, Warrior/Ret/Resto Shaman, and quite a few more.

One thing that struck me as odd was that every single team we fought was actively trying to kill us. We never felt like we were racing against time to kill them before someone ran OOM. We never felt like the other team was trying to prevent us from killing them, but not also actively going for a kill themselves. The 2 healer hunter teams? Gone. Defensive WLD multi-dot pillar kiting? Gone.

For the first time in a long time, none of our matches were frustrating. When we lost, we lost for a reason. Granted, ret pally burst was (and maybe still is) out of control, so a few times we just gibbed someone, or they gibbed us, but barring that, games were quick, they were fun, and typically the better team won.

People are already moaning about the upcoming tournament, as itâ€™ll be played on the 3.0 patch apparently, and the old tried and true comps probably wonâ€™t work so well there. But honestly: Who was looking forward to watching more WLD mirrors?

Iâ€™d much rather watch a well executed CC chain that ends up in a kill than to see how many times Viper ticks on Hafu. Iâ€™d rather watch DGFG queue against a triple ret pally team than see Hoodrych spam hamstring to peel for a Druid in a 30 minute outlast fight. Outlast comps simply arenâ€™t as fun to play with, against, or watch.

Iâ€™m looking forward to arenas in 3.0. Iâ€™d rather have damage be over the top than healing, and I donâ€™t think thatâ€™s just because I play a DPS class.Â But most of all, I'm happy to log in to WoW and not see this:

http://ourworkisneverover.net/wowscreenshots/classbalance.JPG

Proof that WoW's classes are perfectly balanced

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:47:17 -0400

http://www.ourworkisneverover.net/wowscreenshots/classbalance.JPG

this game is legit, you should keep playing it

@Emotive

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:38:19 -0400

good job emotive, you're welcome for letting you use my beta account

Greetings ****,
Account Name: ******
Realm: Murmur (Beta)
Character Name: Emotive

A user of the above account has recently been involved in actions deemed inappropriate for the World of Warcraft by the In-Game Support staff of Blizzard Entertainment. This decision was made after a thorough investigation of the situation as a whole.

When a harassment report is made, all players involved in the incident are subject to review, which may result in account penalties. Though we are unable to discuss the outcomes of our investigations due to privacy concerns, rest assured that this incident has been looked into very thoroughly, and the appropriate actions have been taken on all involved accounts.

Any disputes or questions concerning the following account action can only be addressed by Account Administration. To learn more about how Account Administration is able to assist you, please visit us at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/.

Account Action: Public Test Realm access revoked Offenses: Harassment

Details (Note - Times are listed in Greenwich Mean Time, GMT):
2008/09/08 05:29:12 (GMT) - Emotive says "ROGUES ARE ******* STUPID"
2008/09/08 05:29:49 (GMT) - Emotive says "******* *******"

For further information, please view the World of Warcraft Policies and Terms of Use Agreement: (http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01712p) and (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/termsofuse.shtml). Please be aware that additional inappropriate actions may result in further disciplinary action, up to or including account closure.

We understand that these policies may seem harsh, but they are in place to ensure that every player is able to fully enjoy their travels in the World of Warcraft. Thank you in advance for respecting our position.

*** Please do not respond to this email as all conversations on this matter would be best handled online. ***

Regards,
Zamtiel
Game Master Blizzard Entertainment
www.worldofwarcraft.com

Official Mage Glyphs

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:04:23 -0400

Glyph of Fireball - Increases the initial damage dealt by Fireball by $56368s1%, but removes the damage over time effect.

Glyph of Frostbolt - Increases the damage dealt by Frostbolt by $56370s1%, but removes the slowing effect.

Glyph of Improved Scorch - The Improved Scorch talent now generates $56371s1 applications of the Improved Scorch effect each time Scorch is cast.

Glyph of Mage Armor - Your Mage Armor spell grants an additional $56383s1% mana regeneration while casting.

Glyph of Mana Gem - Increases the mana recieved from using a mana gem by $56367s1%.

Glyph of Molten Armor - Your Molten Armor spell grants an additional $56382s1% critical strike chance.

Glyph of Water Elemental - Reduces the cooldown of your Summon Water Elemental spell by ${$56373m1/-1000} sec.

Glyph of Arcane Power - Increases the duration of Arcane Power by ${$56381m1/1000} sec.

Glyph of Arcane Explosion - Reduces mana cost of Arcane Explosion by $56360s1%.

Glyph of Fireblast - Increases the critical strike chance of Fireblast by $56369s1% when the target is stunned or incapacitated.

Glyph of Frost Nova - Your Frost Nova targets can take an additional $56376s1% damage before the Frost Nova effect automatically breaks.

Glyph of Ice Armor - Your Ice Armor and Frost Armor spells grant an additional $56384s1% armor and resistance.

Glyph of Ice Block - Your Frost Nova cooldown is now reset every time you use Ice Block.

Glyph of Ice Lance - Increases the range of your Ice Lance by $56377s1 yards.

Glyph of Icy Veins - Your Icy Veins ability also removes all movement slowing and cast time slowing effects.

Glyph of Invisibility - Increases the duration of the Invisibility effect by $56366s1 sec.

Glyph of Polymorph - Your Polymorph spell also removes all damage over time effects from the target.

Glyph of Remove Curse - Your Remove Curse spell also makes the target immune to all Curses for $56364s1 sec.

Glyph of Blink - Increases the distance you travel with the Blink spell by $56365s1 yards.

Glyph of Evocation - Your Evocation ability also causes you to regain $56380s1% of your health over its duration. Glyph of Arcane Missiles - Increases the range of Arcane Missiles by $56363s1 yards.

---

I'm personally looking forward to Scorch, Mage Armor, Mana Gem, Water Elemental, Frost Nova, Ice Block, Icy Veins, Polymorph, Remove Curse, Evocation.

Unless the % or Duration on things like Mage Armor, Mana Gem, and WE are really high, I'll probably end up with Frost Nova and Polymorph.Â They seem okay, I really would have liked to see something like a 50% chance to remove snares after a blink.

Your favorite casted Starcraft matches?

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 05:17:00 -0400

I'm terrible at starcraft but I find it really interesting to watch top players play.

Can you guys link some of your favorite matches you've seen that are casted in english, preferably casted well? It'd be greatly appreciated!

It's Official: Mages are Overpowered in WotLK!

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:12:41 -0400

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=52648

Glyph of the Penguin:

Concept art:

WotLK: More ****ing Keys to Bind!

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:47:00 -0400

Anyone else worried about keybinding all the new abilities? Some specs/classes don't have it too tough (frost mages have to bind Freeze and Shatter Shield, that's about it), but even with just two more binds, I don't know where they should go.

------------------------------------------------
Key:

WotLK Beta Signups have Begun!

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:46:56 -0400

The Opt-in is up!

Go to www.worldofwarcraft.com and log in to your account. A splash screen should pop up, asking for you to opt-in. If it doesn't, there is an opt-in button on the account management page.

If you have multiple accounts, you must opt-in on each account.

Frostbolt + Ice Lance + Ice Lance

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:53:51 -0400

This might not be hugely interesting to non-mages, but you'll perk right up when you see the damage output: 9,000 damage in 1.5 seconds.

Mage PvP Haste: A Preliminary Report

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:37:56 -0400

Before I start: I use the words ‘GCD’ and ‘global’ in this post interchangeably. They both mean the same thing: The (normally) 1.5 second Global Cooldown that is triggered by any instant cast spell. With my current level of haste (19, here are my cast speed stats:

GCD, and all 1.5 second casts: 1.33 seconds
Polymorph: 1.18
Frostbolt: 2.22

Icy Veins GCD: 1.11
Icy Veins Polymorph: 0.98
Icy Veins Frostbolt: 1.85

---

I’ve been reluctant to post anything about my experiences with Haste because I know that it will drastically change if/when the Haste dagger is released. Most of the benefit of haste comes with having a SIGNIFICANT advantage in your global cooldown, enough so that your opponent simply does not have the capability to dictate the speed of the fight. That said, I’ve been doing arenas with 198 haste for the past week, and I think I have a fairly good feel for how it will pan out in the end.

2v2: Regardless of what class you arena with in 2v2, haste is terrible. If you’re AP/Fire your POM/Pyro macro won’t hit hard enough, and you don’t really use many of your GCDs as fire anyway. Rogue/Mage your burst won’t be enough, Mage/Restokin or Mage/Priest, your outlast potential will be much lower. I will definitely have a second set of gear for 2v2, probably Crit/Damage based with ~300 resilience. Haste fails pretty hard here – it just feels like you’re wearing S2 gear.

3v3 against Double Healer/Drain comps: Haste against drain comps are sort of a wash. If they have a significant amount of interrupts, I really like haste because I found myself getting off a sheep then getting feared or spell locked after – lots of missed interrupts on their end. On the other hand, drain/outlast comps really just need to be bursted down, and it is much harder with ~700 spell damage. If they were a healer-heavy drain comp with pets and interrupts, I found myself wishing I had 1000 spell damage and no haste. The lack of efficiency didn’t help either, although Icy Veins scorch spamming was nice against a lot of hunter teams.

Double healer warrior, where one of the healers was a resto shaman, was where Haste really performed well. Shamans had to put *SO* much energy in to interrupting my quick casts, and would mostly fail anyone. A few just gave up: They were wasting shocks on nothing, and letting me freecast for the cooldown. The more outlast-style double healer warriors fared much better, as our burst potential was lower and they had more drink opportunities. Generally speaking, Druids counter haste pretty well, as the quick sheeps don’t help us very much against them.

---

Overall, I really enjoy playing an even more fast paced version of this class. It’ll be even better when I’m sitting on ~436 haste, more than double what I have now, but I’m afraid I’ll just hit too softly to take down some of the outlast comps. There is no question in my mind that every mage should have both the haste dagger, and a non-haste weapon (staff or +dmg dagger, either way). I know I will be hot swapping them in combat on a regular basis, and there’s an almost 300 spell damage difference, and it IS significant. I’ll be writing more about this as I learn the subtle differences, and maybe break down exactly when I’ll do weapon swapping.

If Blizzard can fix the problems associated with PvE weapon swapping for double bonuses, there’s no question in my mind that a Haste stacked caster is not overpowered, it is just different. There’s no reason the Haste weapon should be permanently removed from the game – this is not for everyone, it is not for all situations, and it certainly doesn’t close the gap between melee and casters that exists right now. I implore Blizzard to implement the dagger as soon as possible.

Lake Wintergrasp World PvP Reward: A Joke?

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:18:21 -0400

From MMO-Champion.com:

*Lake Wintergrasp will feature an attack/defend game type. Just like the Auchindoun Spirit Towers, when your faction holds a tower it will keep it for a certain amount of time and retain all the advantage for a few hours.
*Northrend "Spirit Shards" will be used to reward players. When your faction controls Lake Wintergrasp all the bosses in Northrend will start dropping them. You can then use these shards to buy rewards from a merchant, they won't be more powerful any other reward but just an alternative to other sources of equipement (like gearing up for PvP very quickly).
"Wintergrasp Marks of Honor" will drop as well and will be redeemable for items through the honor system and other NPCs.

The ultimate reward for holding and keeping the World PvP towers is that if I go kill a boss, I get more loot? Is this a joke? This is Blizzard's big World PvP innovation that they've been touting as a key expansion featureis a PvE reward?

This is a huge mistake, and runs absolutely counter to how World PvP rewards should work.

sekrit new game (shh blizerd is wachin)

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:42:28 -0400

Blatantly stolen from WoW General:

It's Official: Spell Haste Dagger GONE!

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:23:02 -0400

I logged in, purchased my Silk/Haste gear without thinking, and ran over to the S4 vendor to check out the dagger.

Except... it was gone?! A lot of people had assumed it was gone from the PTR vendor due to an oversight, as it has happened that way in the past. But no: The haste dagger is indeed gone.

The question is, now what? Do we stack all the haste we can, or abandon the idea and stick with a damage/crit setup? The choice isn't easy, and I honestly don't know the answer. I do have a few ideas:

1. Stick with the full haste setup (Neck/Rings/Gems/Cloak/Battlemaster's Alacrity), grab the spell damage mainhand, and pick up the badge haste offhand. This'll put you at a respectable level of haste (221), for a 14.25% casting speed increase. Common casts as follow:

Polymorph (with 4 piece bonus): 1.16
Frostbolt: 2.18
GCD (and all 1.5 second casts): 1.31

Icy Veins Polymorph (with 4 piece bonus): 0.97
Icy Veins Frostbolt: 1.86
Icy Veins GCD: 1.12

2. Abandon all haste, and grab all the standard gear we've been getting in S1/S2 and gem for Stam/Resil and/or Damage/Crit. The upside is that we know it works (sort of), the downside is that it is incredibly boring.

3. Complain. A lot. Get the haste dagger reinstated, make forum posts, write blogs, do whatever you can. We need this weapon to stand a chance to turn the tide of melee domination.

I really can't stress how important the dagger is to changing caster dynamics. At the very least, it was going to breathe new life in to the game. I'm sick and tired of Blizzard's PvP itemization, it lacks any semblance of balance and forethought. Do they honestly think that spell penetration is equivalent to armor penetration? Do they not see how every season we fall behind more and more?

I know I'll be on the WoW forums pushing hard for the dagger to be added again, and I hope I'll have the support of other casters looking forward to this change.

On an unrelated note: Ding! Today's my 21st birthday.

Fel/Mage/Molten/Ice Armor Undispellable on PTR

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:50:44 -0400

Not much else to say, it isn't on the patch notes, but they removed the word 'Magic' from the tooltip.

This is a massive buff to both Warlocks and Mages in PvP, and was really a necessary change.

Another interesting thing to note: The Brutal Gladiator's Blade of Alacrity (Haste dagger) has been removed from the vendor, not sure if that's a bug.

How to run while casting ANY SPELL

no.spam@gameriot.com (affix) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:41:29 -0500

1. Hit your 'Shoot Wand' hotkey
2. Immediately hit your spell cast key before your wand actualy shoots
3. The moment your castbar appears, start strafing (almost the same time as you hit your spell cast key)
4. Continue holding strafe and your cast will continue while moving.

You cannot move forward, backward, or jump or the cast will stop. Enjoy it while it lasts!